Recently, I had the interesting and very annoying experience of discovering an e-mail in my junk e-mail folder.  While this is not unusual, what made the experience remarkable was who the e-mail was from – me.

Needless to say, many of the people I had sent the e-mail to never received it.  I decided to send the e-mail again and make one change which dramatically improved my delivery rate: I rewrote the subject line.  I learned a lesson the hard way about what spam blocking software looks for.  Having learned my lesson, I decided to research the art of writing good subject lines.  There was certainly no shortage of information available…

“Keep it Short, Stupid!”
The one area where all the articles I read agreed upon: short is sweet.  Research found on the Email Marketing Reports website reports that “subjects of 49 characters of less produced clickthrough rates 75% higher than those with 50 or more characters.”

Fifty appears to be the industry standard when it comes to subject lines.  Articles from Lyris | HQ and MailChimp.com support this standard, while Cory Rudl at Web-Source.net is a little more lenient, suggesting “Don’t let your subjects run any longer than 60 characters.”  MoreBusiness.com focuses on the number of words stating that “Fewer than 10 words is a must; fewer than five is even better.  Two or three is probably ideal.”  Bryan Eisenberg concurs with these numbers in his article on ClickZ.com.

Words “You” Need to Avoid
What’s true about life in general also applies to e-mail: if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.  Use of the word “free” is frowned upon, although Lyris | HQ does note that “you can use ‘free’ in a subject line.  Just don’t make ‘free’ the first word, use it in conjunction with an exclamation point or spell it in all caps”.  MoreBusiness.com was a lot less kind about the subject, stating that “’Free’ works like gangbusters in snail mail, but is a loser in e-mail marketing – at least in subject lines.”

However, “Free” is not the only word you should avoid.  Eisenberg notes that you should “Avoid words like ‘limited time’, ’free’, ’opportunity,’ and ‘only.’”  And Neil Bainton from MailChimp.com wrote this report about a survey that found three other words to avoid: ‘help’, ‘percent off’, and ‘reminder.’

Perhaps the most ironic word to avoid is “you.”  That majority of articles I read suggest answering the reader’s question of “What’s in it for me?”  This is a perfectly good idea based on the most fundamental concept of marketing: It’s not about you, it’s what you can do for me.  However, in the ClickZ article mentioned earlier, the author writes “While it’s generally a good thing to use the word ‘you’ in persuasive copy, it’s a spam predictor in subject lines.  Few folks use the word ‘you’ in emails to colleagues; spam uses it frequently.”  The article from MoreBusiness.com concurs with this view.

“[FirstName], Please Delete This E-mail”
Is personalization important?  According to the statistics I found, adding a recipient’s first name doesn’t really make much of a difference.  In fact I found a few articles where it’s shown to reduce open rates.  This article from the Email Marketing Reports points out two problems with adding first names to subject lines:

1. Personal e-mail rarely includes the receiver’s name in the subject line.

2. Lot’s of spam puts first names in the subject line.

As one of the people quoted in the article put it, “…nothing screams out ‘marketing message’ more than a personalized first name.  Would your mom ever e-mail you with a subject line of ‘Jeanniey, I have good news?’”  Thus the reasoning is basically the same as for not using “you.”

And here’s perhaps the best argument against including the recipient’s name in the subject line: it takes up space.  Something definitely worth considering when you try to keep the subject line under the fifty character limit.

Having said that, there is evidence that other types of personalization work.  MailChimp.com reports that “…personalization such as including a recipient’s first name or last name does not significantly improve open rates.  Providing localization, such as including a city name, does help.”  The article from Lyris | HQ suggests to “Personalize subject lines users’ product or content preferences, interests, past purchases.”  Nick Usborne gives a wonderful example of personalization in this article when he writes:

A Quick Word about PUNCTUATION!!!
Don’t.  That is, don’t use all capital letters and exclamation points.  These are also red flags to spam checkers. The articles from Lyris | HQ, MoreBusiness.com, and ClickZ are all adamant on this point.  Not only did these articles warn about e-mails potentially being blocked, they also noted that subject lines with words in all capital letters and exclamation points are very unprofessional.  As Bryan Eisenberg put it, “Rarely do you see personal emails that need that kind of ‘noise’ to grab your attention.  Good business writing never does it.  It doesn’t need to.”

Question marks, on the other hand, fare much better.  MailChimp states that “Subject lines framed as questions can often perform better.”  ClickZ suggests “Do use question marks, if doing so makes sense. Questions are much more engaging than statements.”

Building Your Brand
Nick Usborne instructs marketers to “Forget about being clever.  Forget about trying to sell.  Instead go for RECOGNITION.”  His reasoning is that it’ll make it easier for the people who have signed up for your newsletter to spot your e-mail once it ends up in their inbox along with the 200-300 others they receive in a given day.  Lyris | HQ supports this view: “…do consider branding your subject line with the name of the newsletter, for example, so that it will stand out in the junk folder and your recipients’ overflowing inboxes.”

Another part of the e-mail that helps facilitate brand recognition is the “From” line.  Creating a good “From” line is a subject best left for another article, though this article from Lyris | HQ is a good place to start.  One good bit of advice from Lyris | HQ; “If your “from” line lists your company name, you don’t have to repeat it in the subject line, which frees up space in the subject line.”

When All Else Fails…Test!
Another area where all of these articles agree: writing good subject lines for e-mails is not an exact science.  While the above tips make for good guidelines, the best way to find what works is to try different subject lines and measure the results.  Sage E-Marketing goes even further with this and allows a “split test” with a sample of e-mails for a campaign.  Whichever subject line returns the best open rate is assigned to the rest of the e-mails for the campaign.

Here’s to wishing you great success in your marketing efforts…